A military spouse's take on blooming where you are planted. I continue to pretend I am living on my dream farm while in reality, I live on a military base, gardening in a plot alongside a Navy flightline, with half of my homesteading supplies perpetually packed in boxes and have a habit of being overly involved in every community we live in. I'm a busy mom to 2 boys and a spouse to a Navy sailor soon nearing retirement. I love this chaotic life wouldn't trade it for anything!

right now

Jul 5, 2011

How we spent the holiday

We were lucky enough to have hubby join us after all! He was off the afternoon, so we went to the pool, as the car was reading 101º, yuck!

I scored a table with an umbrella and had some great reading material with me -

Not to be outdone by Loch's "deep end" pool video, Finnegan insisted that I also film him on his first venture into the deep end. After getting the okay from the lifeguard, off he went! I know his swimming looks rough, but there's only one way to get better, by doing it! Also, hubby is underwater near him to make sure he makes it, LOL.

Poor hubby, works 8 days in a row, 12 hours a day, and we take him right back there for "fun". LOL, this is the view from the pool...

Hubby can't seem to get away from the jets, but the "free" in the base "free pool" shouts louder :)

Any guesses as to what this is in the photo below? You win nothing for a correct answer other than my admiration for knowing :), I'll fill you in later if nobody guesses correctly!

along with the last of the bean harvest to go with our grilled veggie burgers. There are more beans planted but it will be a few weeks until they start producing. These were from the plants I had to pull since they were crowding my peppers.

What, no fireworks? Nope - I lucked out there. I didn't want to deal with the crowds of tourists at the beach and worried about being a "bad mom" for not going, but turns out I didn't have to... Mother Nature saw fit to cancel all the city displays and put on her own show of lightning, thunder and rain.

I'm elbow deep in squeezing tomatoes today, hoping to make a decent amount of tomato sauce. Have I said lately how much I love my new canner? :)

15 comments:

Jane, you got it! "Landing planes" is the answer, although it was thrown in there with some other funny guesses LOL!

For those that want to know...

This is used on an aircraft carrier, hence the stabilization platform so it will remain level -

**The lens consists of a series of lights and Fresnel lenses mounted to a gyroscopically stabilized platform. The lenses focus the light into narrow beams that are directed into the sky at various angles.

The pilot will see different lights depending on the plane's angle of approach. If the plane is right on target, the pilot will see an amber light, dubbed the "meatball," in line with a row of green lights. If the amber light appears above the green lights, the plane is coming in too high; if the amber light appears below the green lights, the plane is coming in too low. If the plane is coming in way too low, the pilot will see red lights.

And for those that are like "huh"???** in Top Gun where you hear "CALL THE BALL"... this is what they are referring to when they are lined up to an amber light and ready to land on the carrier.

How nice that Mother Nature made the decision easy for you with some rain! Looks like you had a great weekend and the garden is being good to you as well. What recipe for the pickled peppers? They are my nemisis. I seem to have lots of those...

WOW you are harvesting a lot already! All of your veggies look so good, too. We're getting quite a few tomatoes and now some of the beans are coming in as well as the peppers - not as many as you're getting though. Finn's swimming doesn't look bad to me. Practice makes perfect...

I got the envelope returned to me with a needs postage note on it, not sure how 2 stamps worked for you, but they are telling me I need an extra eighty cents to get it back. Sigh, so sorry again for the delay, I will get an extra eighty cents on that sucker and it will be VA bound!

APG, I just use a basic recipe of 5 cups vinegar to 1 cup water, 4 tsp Kosher salt, 2 tbsp sugar for all my pickling and halve it or double it depending on how many jars I anticipate (that does about 6 pints), then add spices and herbs depending on what I'm pickling. Say garlic, peppers, peppercorn and dill for cukes, or in this case I just added a garlic clove to the jar of pepperoncini and that was it. Jalapenos I keep with just the vinegar mixture and nothing added. They are all different all the time LOL, sometimes I have nasturtium flowers I like to add to pickles too, it makes the jars pretty! Also I always put 2 fresh picked grape leaves in the bottoms of my cuke pickles to keep them crisp.

Anke, he was actually swimming better than that later in the afternoon, I had to laugh because in the video it just looks like he isn't going anywhere :)***Sparkless, just trying to keep those brain cells full of ridiculous facts and knowledge you can spew out randomly LOL!***Kelly, LOL, that is strange, but no problem!***Dmarie, don't get discouraged when it's time to learn, I remember thinking "what a MESS, why would anyone do this?" LOL, but each year it gets a bit easier. The first year I swear I had to plan an entire day and made hubby take the kids out of my hair so I could concentrate, I was convinced I was going to poison somebody or explode something :)

Dani, it's fun for sure!***Thomas, I don't really boil jars for just refrigerator pickles, and with a pressure canner you don't have to do it, either! That's one of the bonuses of the pressure cooking. If you are steam canning anything for less than 10 minutes though I believe you do. I do let my caps sit in boiling water for about 5 minutes then turn it off and let it sit until I need them. I bring the pickling liquid to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes and pour it into the jars while hot. This is a real basic liquid recipe but the fun comes in with adding whatever herbs and spices you want!***Sue, ha! Oh there's an end all right - it involves my patience level and occasional throwing objects in the kitchen :)***Judy, it's my favorite! I have always eaten German Potato Salad over the other - I can't stand mayonaise, even the sound of it Yuck! So I've honestly never even tried the yellow stuff :)

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WHAT'S MY STORY?

Welcome! I'm a native Minnesota girl, Mom, Navy Veteran as well as a Navy spouse for the past 15 years. I am also a Certified Master Gardener that got the rug pulled out from under me 2 years ago... we transferred from a Virginia home with a huge garden into government quarters with a concrete back yard at our current duty station. Even when I can't garden, I'm dreaming of it. When I'm not getting dirty in the garden, I quilt, organize things, make lists, make more lists, go sailing and volunteer with the high school sailing team my kids are on. Only a couple more years until military retirement, we need a plan!

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Why the blog name?

Military life likes to throw wrenches into plans. Too many years of thinking "I'll start a garden someday"… someday with a bigger house, a nicer yard, climate, etc, etc - I just decided to DO IT and and worry about the logistics later! We are living the oxymoron of homesteading for the mobile military family and pulling it off the best we can. Follow our adventures as we carry our homestead wherever we go!